


an empty room filled with people

by usoverlooked



Category: Community
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, dark timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/pseuds/usoverlooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jeff Winger – him, but not really, he soon finds – has only one arm and a vengeful glean in his eye. None of that makes sense – to the doctors or to Jeff – because this man has two arms and confusion." (see also: amnesia in dark timelines)</p>
            </blockquote>





	an empty room filled with people

**Author's Note:**

  * For [easternepiphany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/gifts).



> UNBETA'D/UNEDITED WHATEVER WHATEVER. A lot of semantics are left vague but feel free to ask for clarification or just interpret them as you please.  
> For Kate, who told me to write it.

The room is very white and bright. It singes into Jeff’s eyes, like staring into the sun. He tries to shake it off as he stands, but it remains. He blinks fast until someone touches his arm. It’s a doctor - white coat, glasses and a concerned look – who asks Jeff his name. It’s such an absurd question but he answers it nonetheless. The doctor stares at him for a moment too long and Jeff feels squeamish. Quickly the doctor explains. Apparently, Jeff Winger – him, but not really, he soon finds – has only one arm and a vengeful glean in his eye. None of that makes sense – to the doctors or to Jeff – because this man has two arms and confusion. They ask other questions and Jeff remembers little. He remembers how to do things, what things are, but it’s all detached. They ask about his life – a school, a study group, a funeral even – and not a lick of it rings a bell. The doctors mumble around Jeff, about semantics and secret formulas and all the things from comic books. Eventually they dismiss him and let him out into a common room.

Five other people stand around the room. A pretty brunette is examining the bookshelf on the far wall and when she turns Jeff startles. She’s younger than he expected – not a wrinkle on her – and it jars him. He feels disgusted with himself and vows to not pay her any mind. It’s a hollow promise – the girl scratches and slips her way into his mind at night, when he’s too tired to fight the revulsion he should feel. They talk rarely – she’s quiet and mousey, the way girls who don’t know they’re pretty always are. But for him, she will always be the first thing he notices about this place – a double-edged emblem, both good and bad. He steers clear of her.

Near her is a skinny man. He’s muttering to himself – obviously putting the girl ill at ease, as she keeps glancing at him – and scrubbing his hands over each other. His nose is a beak and the rest of him is angles just the same. The man disappears later – none of the doctors will say how or why – but he’s the one to come up with the theory. It’s shortly after Jeff walks in. Apparently, in an attempt to ready the group, the doctors had warned that he might be missing a limb. When he isn’t, the man runs with this. According to him, they’re all from another dimension or timeline or world. It is, Jeff thinks for the second time that day, something that only happens in comics. Except part of it makes sense so he laughs it off because seriously considering the possibility would be madness.

While the beak-nosed man begins to exclaim over the existence of Jeff’s arms, he finds himself making eye-contact with a woman across the room. She’s motherly, though not old, and soothing a boy next to her. At first Jeff wonders if the boy is her son, but he looks too old, he realizes on second thought. The woman stares at him, like she’s seen a ghost, then ducks her head back down. The two never speak – she ducks around corners and into rooms to avoid him – but Jeff feels a kinship with her. It takes him a great while to realize that this is probably why she avoids him.

The boy, who is openly crying, is in actuality probably only a little younger than the beak-nosed man. But his behavior – the crying, the latching on, the unkempt neediness – makes him seem a child. Jeff dislikes him almost immediately, his openness. It comes without confidence but also without fear. Jeff only comes near him to drop an insult, though he considers the boy on occasion.

Lastly, there is a blonde lady. She’s pretty, though not exceptionally so, and separate from the others. Peering through the only window, she does not even see Jeff at first. Which, Jeff reflects time and again, is a good thing. Because Jeff feels a gut reaction to her, unlike the rest. It’s not definable – rather like seeing a sign and knowing that you know it but never being able to place where it belongs. He swallows, suddenly feeling as though every article of his clothing needs adjusting before it is proper to be seen in. She turns, looks at him, and then dismissively turns back to the window.

The doctors come back in later – after the beak-nosed man has blathered on about the timelines and all. All their words seem to spiral around and Jeff realizes how little they know. The six of them are – or were, Jeff is unsure of time in this – part of a study group. They rule their little community college and argue and kiss and it feels constricting. There used to be seven of them – an old man was with them – but he died and since then things have gone wrong. Since then, the six of them have slowly migrated to live here, an institution. The doctors nod at Jeff, the newest addition, explain how when he arrived, madness ensued. The lights flickered out for a moment and since then the group has been acting strangely. Apparently that was two days previous, though Jeff cannot remember those two days or any specifics of the days before. The doctors hem and haw – it’s clear that this change in attitude frightens them. The amnesia is nothing new, though it seems more severe – one doctor adds. The brunette begins to cry and the boy has never stopped. The rest seem nonplussed, though the woman who avoids Jeff tuts under her breath.

They break off after that, into their own spaces. Jeff meanders over to the blonde, who ignores him. Eventually, he tells his name and she turns to him. She smiles up – for the first time that he knows of, he thinks how small she is and how absurd that such a person fits into a body so small – and tells him a nonsense name. When he laughs – once, a short chuckle – she glares. Realizing his mistake, Jeff stumbles out an apology, but the damage is done. Britta – he will always maintain that such a name is worth at least one  laugh – has decided. To her, Jeff is no good.

The days pass without fanfare – Jeff spends his time attempting conversations with Britta or in the gym – until finally the doctors allow some of them to go out. It’s just a day trip - such a simple thing, even grade schoolers are allowed to do it – but it cheers Jeff considerably. His spirits are even more lightened when Britta climbs into the seat next to him – a doctor drives and the brunette sits shotgun. No one speaks on the ride to the mall – the brunette girl draws pictures on the window with her fingers – but the doctor instructs them all to be back at five. Jeff and Britta end up together as the brunette ducks into a bookshop before either can speak to her. Jeff nudges Britta and smiles down at her. Britta looks up at him, then shrugs. Later, Jeff will see that this is how they are at first – he smirks and hopes, she gives in and lets him. As a whole, the day is uneventful – they window-shop and come up with false past identities that do not include community colleges or attachments to others. They arrive late and the doctor glares – he informs them that the brunette got there fifteen minutes early. Jeff snorts and Britta bites her lip and thus it begins.

The first to leave is the woman who avoids Jeff. She has an ex-husband and children who eventually claim her. If she remembers anything, she does not tell anyone but the doctors.

Somehow Jeff and Britta fall into a relationship – though perhaps relationship is too formal of a word. It’s more that his lips find hers and she wakes up in his bed some mornings – there is little more to it. If the doctors know – and Jeff assumes they do – they never mention it. Perhaps it is not worth mentioning; perhaps they assume it will pass. Regardless, Jeff finds himself some semblance of happy.

The crying boy leaves. The beak-nosed boy seems downcast about it. He informs Jeff – who did not ask – that the boy remembered. He says this in a reverent way but Jeff finds himself not caring. Who they were seems inconsequential.

Britta says three words and Jeff says them back. For countless couples the world over, this means very little. For them it means something – though the full weight of it does not hit Jeff for a long time. They start to talk about moving in together after. It consumes them – the possibility of after. The pair of them are teen lovers, stuck in transit until they are free of their parents. They are childhood sweethearts, making promises in a tree house. Unfortunately, they are also doomed.

Jeff remembers.

Nothing sparks it – not a meaningful kiss, not a sudden touch – but one day he’s walking down the hall and it floods back. It nearly crushes him, the weight of it all, and he understands why the rest left without telling. It’s an anchor that ties him, sharing it would only mean sinking whoever he told. When he looks at Britta, the entire thing is ruined. No longer is she the girl who understands him, now she is competition. She is the one thing he can never admit to needing – now that he is himself fully.

Britta notices – of course – and asks. He manages to hide it for a week and a half. He answers her question with stammers and half-remarks until she catches on. She’s clever – though he cannot admit it now – and asks a silly question. Britta asks him – her eyes on the floor – if they hated each other. Jeff stumbles over the answer. They don’t, but it’s not that simple. They hate what the other means. They hate that if there is a them – that vague concept that they grasped so easily before he remembered – it means they have to face a million other things. They hate that they want to face those million things. Of course, Jeff cannot figure out how to put this in words – much less if these feelings are or were mutual. So Jeff shrugs and smiles halfway. Britta swallows, turns on her heel and leaves him.

Jeff leaves. The doctors give him time to say his farewells so he knocks on Britta’s door. She shuffles behind it until he leaves. He considers leaving a note but it doesn’t feel right. So he picks up his bag and walks out.

Colorado feels wrong. He finishes up classes at Greendale off-campus – people there are also surprised that he has two arms, but no one remains shocked. It is the kind of place where things like this are expected to happen. Jeff ends up in New York after graduating – an unexciting affair, he picks up the diploma on his way out of town – and drowns himself in work. He works as a paralegal while studying in law school. He has no friends and wants none. The only decoration in his apartment is a group photo of the seven of them. It hurts him to look out, but he feels he owes it to someone – though who he is not sure.

Three years pass and he finds himself a lawyer once again. The office that hired him as a paralegal keeps him on as an actual lawyer. They give him a party for it – Jeff slips out halfway through. When he winds his way back to his apartment, he is shocked by who he finds.

Britta sits on his doorstep, cigarette in one hand and book in the other. She looks up at him and smirks. He can only imagine his face – he barely manages to compose himself when her mouth turns up into a grin. He manages to ask her why she is here. Dropping the cigarette, Britta stands. She stands on tiptoe as she wraps a fist around his tie.

“I remembered,” Britta breathes into him – all smoke and something like nostalgia. She drags him by his tie until their lips nearly meet before stopping. She bites her lip for a minute before speaking. “You should kiss me right now.”

So Jeff does.


End file.
